Tabla de contenidos para Issue 45 en Science Illustrated

Editor: Rikke Jeppesen GEOLOGY Just like an unbalanced spinning top, our planet is swaying slightly back and forth around its own axis, and so, the geographical poles are constantly on the move. We have known this for a long time, but now, scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have used satellite monitoring of the water on Earth to solve one of the mysteries of the ongoing shifts. According to recent research, climate change could contribute to Earth's irregular movements. Until around 2000, Earth’s north pole moved in the direction of Canada at a speed of about 10 cm a year, but subsequently, it took a considerable bend, migrating towards the east at a speed of 17 cm/year, i.e. almost twice as fast. However, the melting of polar ice caps is…

NEW TUNNELS TO CONNECT EUROPE Depending in which part of Australia you live, it might feel like the government never spends any money on infrastructure. That's not the case in Europe, where in just 15 years, Finns and Estonians will be able to take a fast trip under the Baltic Sea through the world’s longest undersea tunnel. Nicknamed “Talsinkifix”, the tunnel will be 92 km long and cost EUR 8.5-13.7 billion ($20 billion). With a travel time of only 30 minutes, the fixed link will be markedly faster than the ferries which presently carry passengers between the two capital cities. LOTS OF TUNNEL RECORDS The Talsinkifix is the most recent of a long series of underground engineering projects in Europe. Problems such as motorway traffic congestion, overburdened rail links, and…

2 Beautiful Coffee Table Books from Bloomsbury! In these days of e-books and Kindles, a printed book needs to be something special. A collector’s item even. Which is why Bloomsbury has produced these two gorgeous books about maps. Full of exquisite illustrations and fascinating insight, Metropolis: Mapping the City and Maps: Their Untold Stories are worthy additions to any serious book collection. Each book is worth $60. For your chance to win both books, simply subscribe to Australian Science Illustrated now! WORTH $120!…

1. The Antonov An-225 is currently the word’s largest what? 2. MKULTRA was a series of ethically dubious experiments done by the CIA in the late 1960s, to investigate what? 3. Does data from Juno show that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is hotter or colder than the surrounding atmosphere? 4. During the process of digestion, which food becomes less acidic: butter or mandarins? 5. The Cervidae family, which includes deer, can regrow which type of organ faster than any other mammal? 6. Which famous 19th century serial killer is depicted as a shadow, rather than a detailed wax figure, at Madame Tussauds in London? 7. What is it about the local climate at a spot near Marble Bar in remote Western Australia, that gave it the name “North Pole”? 8.…

Pokemon Are Real and Living Among Us! When the Australian pink underwing moth caterpillar is scared, it immediately retracts its head to the stomach, moving the front of its back upwards and forward. The stunning large “eyes” and white “teeth” scare away predators, and give the larva the nickname “skull-faced caterpillar”. Yet this defensive trick won't save it from dwindling quantities of the vine in which it lives and on which it feeds. The caterpillar, whose scientific name is Phyllodes imperialis smithersi, is endangered and lives only in the south-east corner of Queensland. Photo // Lui Weber Russian volcano covered by mushroom cloud A mushroom-like cloud looms over a volcano in the Russian Kamchatka region. The characteristic cloud forms when a stable air-flow encounters a high obstruction such as a…

MEDICINE In a lab in Japan, scientists from the RIKEN centre and the University of Tokyo have managed to make a very sophisticated type of artificial skin, which includes hair follicles and sweat glands. The breakthrough is good news for people who will need a skin transplant due to burns, as well as for animals. The artificial skin can reduce the need for animal testing, as in the future, cosmetics and other products can be tested on the artificial skin, and so, lots of mice, rats, and other test animals could be spared. The scientists created the skin by extracting cells from the gums of mice. Then the cells were converted into stem cells, which were used to create three layers of fully functional skin. The artificial skin was transplanted…

THE KNOWN PLANETS PLANET NINE On the remote outskirts of our Solar System, far beyond the gas giants of Uranus and Neptune, you will find the Kuiper Belt, which includes millions of objects of all sizes, from pebbles to dwarf planets such as Pluto. If we continue the journey towards the enigmatic ice zone of the Oort Cloud, which no mission has yet visited, we will find an unknown planet – the ninth of the Solar System: a world that has managed to hide from us until now. Whereas the discovery of new dwarf planets has become relatively common, a new major planet has not been discovered since Neptune, 170 years ago. The sensational discovery was made by astronomers Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin from Caltech. The scientists have not…

Tunnel boring machines primarily consist of a large cutter head studded with smaller disc cutters, which break down rock into still smaller pieces. Moreover, modern machines calculate the pressure that the cutter head must exert on the rock wall to drill and still maintain ground stability. Instead of workers manually removing rock, gravel, and soil, they are cleared away by conveyor belts operating from the front to the back of the machine. In some types of tunnel boring machines, the material is mixed with special foam into a kind of pasta, which is moved backwards from the cutter head via a helical pump to land on the conveyor belt. At the same time, the boring machine stabilises the most recently drilled part of the tunnel by automatically lining the rock…

3 MILESTONES DYING STARS REVEAL DARK ENERGY 1 1998 Supernova observations showed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating ever faster. This could not be explained by existing theories, so astronomers introduced the theory about a repellent dark energy and were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2011. CLUSTERS REVEAL TURNING POINT 2 2004 NASA’s Chandra telescope observed the X-radiation from 26 galaxy clusters of different ages. Astronomers measured the distance to each individual cluster, calculating how fast they are moving. The data showed that dark energy outcompeted gravity around 6-7 billion years ago. SATELLITE MEASURES DARK ENERGY 3 2013 The European Planck satellite calculated the distribution of matter in the universe by measuring the cosmic background radiation. Only 4.9 % consists of visible matter, whereas dark matter accounts for…

DANGER ZONE Australians are not alone In Scandinavia, ticks are estimated to be responsible for some 200,000 annual attacks on people, many of which remain undetected. 40-50,000 annual Borrelia infections in Sweden TICK INFECTION Bacteria hide behind four clever tick weapons Tick saliva protects the Borrelia bacterium against the human immune system and prevents itching. So, the victim may not notice the attack before being infected. WEAPON 1 Tick saliva contains special ingredients, which are injected into the victim. They reduce itching and pain around the bite, so the victim will not notice the tick . WEAPON 2 Tick saliva contains many anti coagulants, that prevent the wound from healing the way it normally would. The victim’s blood does not coagulate, allowing the tick to keep on sucking for a…

THE LATEST FINDINGS AND DISCOVERIES Editor: Babak Arvanaghi NEW STRONG FOLDABLE 4D MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY Buildings that can change shape in a split second or fold into a bag. It sounds futuristic, but the technology is within reach, after scientists from Harvard University managed to develop a material that can change size, shape, and volume at command. The material can also change its hardness into either bendable or completely inflexible, and last, but not least, it is incredibly strong. The scientists responsible for the ground-breaking invention were inspired by the traditional Japanese art form of origami. The new material is, however, not made up of paper, but rather of the artificial material polyethylene, which is folded into a cube with two missing sides and combined with other, completely identical cubes. The…

// FACTS LITHIUM: THE SUPER METAL The soft, silver-grey metal lithium has atomic number 3 on the periodic table. It is an alkali metal with one electron in its outer shell, making it a highly reactive element. It does not exist freely in nature, but in various salts it makes up 0.0017 % of Earth’s crust. 3 Li Lithium 6.941 *Yes, chemistry postgraduates, we know Hydrogen theoretically could behave like a metal in places like the heart of Jupiter. Moving on... The sun shines relentlessly on the huge Salar de Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia. The level terrain stretches almost infinitely across 10,500+ km2. Neither buildings, nor trees interrupt the monotonous landscape. It is a quiet, desolate place, but that will not be so for much longer. The bone-dry crust…

LIGHT PASSING INTO TELESCOPE Telescope records 10 billion years The Euclid space telescope is to look 10 billion years back in time, including the period in which dark energy outcompeted gravity.…

THE HUMAN GUT FLORA: Controls moods Gut bacteria control our moods by means of signals. Causes disease Unfortunate gut bacteria may cause both mental and physical diseases. Exists everywhere Bacteria are found in all body folds and openings, from the skin to the lungs. The attack came without warning. A mental patient with delusions lunged at 62-year-old nurse, Maureen Olbon. In a split second, the patient’s strong arms were locked in a stranglehold around her neck. Luckily, other nurses managed to save Olbon. Two months later, she was attacked again. Although she managed to survive once more, her nerves were shattered. She suffered panic attacks, she hardly dared go to work, and she developed a depression. Doctors and psychiatrists prescribed more antidepressants, but nothing helped. Finally, one of Olbon’s doctors…

Fresh meltwater blob weakens Gulf Stream Downwelling salty water ususally functions as a pump, which helps power the Gulf Stream and particularly the North Atlantic Drift, which the pump pulls to the far north. But meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet has produced a cold fresh water blob in the region. The lighter, lessdense fresh water mixes with salty water, preventing downwelling. This could weaken the North Atlantic Drift. KEY TO SYMBOLS Cold deep current Warm surface current Warm surface current changing into cold deep current Current heats Northern Europe The Gulf Stream is a powerful, warm surface current flowing from the US east coast across the Atlantic to Northern Europe. There, evaporation makes the stream so salty and heavy that, off the southern point of Greenland, it sinks down…